


On My Honor, I Will Try

by ChibiSquirt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Rimming, Service Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 19:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8726695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/pseuds/ChibiSquirt
Summary: Steve never knew of his mixed heritage until Strange told him, and he didn't know what to think when he found out.  But it did sort of explain some things...





	1. On My Honor, I Will Try

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arukou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/gifts).



> Many thanks to Priya for beta-ing. 
> 
> To my Holiday Exchange pal: I hope this is what you were looking for! You can probably tell, I sort of... frankenstein'ed a couple prompts together. Hopefully, it works! 
> 
> Happy holidays!

By luck, there actually was a Joseph Rogers from Brooklyn.  Sarah never did meet him, much less marry him, but technically, he did exist.

Sarah knew the truth about Caldruinnian herself, but she certainly never told her son.  She doubted he would have believed her if she had; after all, these days, whoever believed in fairies?

 

* * *

 

Caldruinnian was never going to be able to stay forever, and Sarah knew it when she took him in.  He made a point of telling her of the curse he bore, which spurred his feet to wandering, and the danger he sought to escape, the hunters sent by his enemies in the Court.  

But even in human form, Caldruinnian was handsome, and so, despite the risks, she offered him a place to stay, anyway.  

(Later, he would realize that she would have offered even if he  _ weren't  _ handsome, just because he was lost, and alone, and needed help.  And because her father was a minister, and her mother had raised her right in the eight years she’d had.

And besides which, he did the dishes.  Of  _ course  _ she didn't kick him out.

But he wouldn't put that together until later.)

 

* * *

 

Her father was the first of her family to leave her, passing away with yellowed eyes and a wandering mind.  There wasn't a will, and so technically, the house belonged to their father's cousin, who would presumably come and claim it some day, at which point, all three sisters (plus Caldruinnian) agreed, they would just be homeless and destitute and miserable.  But in the meantime, since their father's cousin was still in Ireland and the house was in Long Island, Sarah and her sisters just stayed put.  They had to live  _ somewhere,  _ after all.

Caldruinnian was grateful; he felt far more  _ himself  _ with a house to take care of.  A house had  _ tasks— _ it had cleaning and dusting, sweeping and polishing, laundry and more laundry and  _ more  _ laundry, and cleaning out the u-bend of the kitchen sink after Frannie washed tea-leaves down it  _ again.   _ Caldruinnian almost felt  _ normal  _ in a house, and he hoped that Sarah's father's cousin never, ever came over.

That was when he asked her to marry him, and Sarah agreed.  He reminded her of his curse, and of the hunters, and that he would have to leave sooner or later.  "My love is a shabby thing," he warned her.  "I can't stay with you forever.  I wish to God I could."

"Everything I own is shabby," she told him briskly, "And you are by far the least shabby of the lot.  And don't swear by a God you don't believe in."

They were married within the month, and she was, for a time, deliriously happy.

Her sister Mary was the next to leave, marrying Johnny from up near Boston even though all three of them  _ and  _ Caldruinnian knew it was a bad idea.  They watched her step onto the train beside him, and Frannie shook her head.  "She's gonna be broken and dead inside o' three years, then, ain't she?"  

Sarah sighed, bowing her head, and didn't answer, but it was only two years and seven months before the word came back:  Died in childbirth.  

(She'd been twenty years old.)

Frannie—well. 

The less said about Frannie, the better.

That little  _ pirate.   _

(Sarah would always be a bit bitter that Frannie got to run away and join the Navy, and even more so that she had—apparently—gotten  _ away  _ with it.  Sarah would never have managed it, even with a temperament like Frannie's, because Sarah did not, let's say, also have a  _ figure  _ like Frannie's, and yes, alright, she was  _ jealous. _  But done was done, and the less Sarah thought about her sister's willful flouting of all tradition, the better for the enamel of Sarah's molars.)

Frannie (or rather, these days,  _ Frankie) _ was the last to leave—besides Caldruinnian, and Sarah herself, of course.  Frannie didn't even say goodbye—alright, she left a note when she snuck away at midnight, but  _ that _ was hardly the same.  

Sarah, of course, turned immediately to Caldruinnian.  "Did you know?" she demanded.

He smiled sadly.  "Dear heart, when you quench a flame, it is not chastened; it is  _ extinguished."   _ He put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

Angrily, she shoved it off.  She did her own laundry that night, too, but it was hard work and frustrating, and by the time her skirt was dry again, she had given in and accepted Caldruinnian's arms and aid once again.

It wasn't long after that, though, that Caldruinnian felt the pulling of the curse once more, bidding his feet to wander.  At night, he heard the hounds howling, and shuddered.  (Sarah said sleepily that they were only  _ dogs,  _ Joseph, come back to  _ bed,  _ but Sarah  _ didn't know.   _ It was a long time before he managed to climb, shivering, back under the covers beside her.)  

The next morning, rather than rising early to make the porridge, Caldruinnian brushed Sarah awake with fingers in her blonde hair and feather-weight kisses on her cheek.  "Dear heart, I have to leave soon," he told her.

She closed her eyes, but nodded; she had known it was coming.  "Where will you go?" she asked, brushing the dark hair of his human form out of his eyes.

He shrugged.  "I don't care," he told her.  "I might join the Army; that way, I can send you some wages.  The more important question is, where will  _ you  _ go?  You cannot stay here, not with all your family gone."

She bit her lip, and climbed on top of him.  "I'll be alright," she told him.  She ran her fingers down his fair chest and stomach, making him gasp, and teased him to gasping fullness before taking him inside herself.  She shifted forward and back, biting her lip and feeling her back arch in pleasure.  "I was never the sister they were  _ worried _ about."

Caldruinnian's eyes shone gem-bright in the faint light, like a cat's.  "I love you," he said gravely, and surged upwards, kissing her deeply, deeply, as they rocked together.  "Never forget that.   _ I love you."   _

She never did forget.

She wouldn't have, anyway, but also, she had baby Steven to remind her.


	2. To Serve God and my Country

Steve never knew of his mixed heritage until Strange told him, and he didn't know _what_ to think when he found out; it sort of explained some things.  

He certainly didn’t know back when he volunteered for Project Rebirth.   More to the point, Erskine didn't know, either, which made it a stroke of  _ incredible  _ luck that that very same part-fae heritage enabled Steven Grant Rogers to survive the Vita-Rays and the Serum and the agony of metamorphosis to become Captain America.

It wasn't an accident that the Serum never worked quite the same way again. 

 

* * *

 

It had been almost a relief to join the army, in this one respect:  everything— the pack, the uniform, the bed, the tent,  _ everything—  _ had its place.  When you were in the military, keeping everything clean, tidy, and well-maintained was part of the job, and not, as it had been to Bucky and his sisters growing up, a sign of weirdness.

Bucky was okay with it, when they were kids—sure, he thought it was odd when Steve obsessively leaped upon his shoes with the polishing oil, but he didn't  _ mind,  _ or anything. __ He even had the good spirit to joke about it, acting like it was something Steve did as a chore, and not out of his own neuroticism.

Bucky’s sisters, though, were the  _ worst:  _ “That’s women’s work,” Becca used to tell him, scornfully.  But Steve liked having everything organized, and more than that, he liked being  _ useful,  _ and he didn’t scruple to tell her so.

“It’s still women’s work,” she shrugged.

Steve had never liked being ignored.

These days, of course, Becca didn’t tell him anything.  These days, Becca had been in the ground for almost forty years, along with everyone else he knew.

 

* * *

 

Stark didn’t get it, either, Steve would find out later—  _ much  _ later.  It was only a little bit of a problem.

 

* * *

 

Banner and Thor weren’t a surprise:  They were both just naturally slightly shabby— slightly sloppy— and Steve hadn’t really expected them to understand.

Romanov was a shock, though.

In retrospect, Steve really should have seen it coming:  she left her tea mugs on the counter, her scarves on the chair, and while she scrupulously cleaned her guns, there was a service that had to track her down for her uniforms.  Suffice to say, she was not naturally tidy.  

(Some day, Natasha was going to get brainwashed by the same sort of whammy that Loki had used on Barton, or something like it, anyway— it seemed like a solid bet, given the way their lives had been going— and on that day, Steve was not going to use the many millions of dollars of spy tech SHIELD had available when they asked him to take her in.  Instead, he was just going to go down to the laundry service, and turn the whole problem over to them.  They would probably enjoy the opportunity, honestly.)

But in spite of her tendency to spread her things far and wide, Steve still found himself baffled when he realized.  

She gave the impression of self-sufficiency, and to Steve’s mind, part of that was making sure that everything you owned was in good working condition.  It meant  _ inhabiting  _ your space,  _ possessing  _ it, and that, in turn, meant taking care of it.  So when Romanov found him conditioning his belt and jacket in the kitchen sink one morning and treated him to a look like he had told her he was going down to the Everglades for a bath, he couldn’t suppress the flash of betrayal.

He’d just...  He’d thought she would _ get _ it, was all.

Well, she didn’t; no use crying over it.

 

* * *

 

Barton  _ did  _ get it, which was just as much of a surprise as Romanov, except in the opposite direction.  It came a lot earlier, though:  not a week had passed since Steve had arrived back at Tower before he walked in on Barton at the table, a pot of coffee beside him, arrows stacked in front of him, an old bomber jacket slung over the chair at his back.  Slowly, Barton took each arrow, sighting down it; if it carried a mechanism, he checked it; and then he put it back in the quiver.  

There were ten quivers at his feet; each one held twenty arrows.  And, as Steve watched, each arrow took just shy of half a minute to check.

When Barton reached the end of a quiver, he moved it from beneath his knees to his right side, and took a quiver from his left and put it beneath his knees, removing all the arrows from it to stack, once again, on the table.

There were eight more quivers remaining on Barton’s left.  

Silently, Steve left the kitchen, heading to the oversized gun safe in his room.

 

* * *

 

They had given him guns, of course, and he had even used a couple during the battle against the Chitauri.  But he couldn’t  _ like  _ them.  They were, simultaneously, too fine, and yet not precise enough, for his tastes, and if he had an option, he avoided using one.

Still, he had a bunch now, an entire arsenal in a secured curio in his quarters at Stark Tower, and he was assured that if he moved, he was entitled to take the whole cabinet with him.  He cleaned out the contents, leaving only the largest (which he suspected of being not so much a  _ gun  _ as a  _ shoulder-mounted grenade launcher),  _ and brought them all to the kitchen with him.

“Here,” he said, dumping them on the table in front of Barton.  Barton jerked his head up, eyes wide.  “You do these, I’ll do all your uniforms.  And the jacket,” he added, nodding at it.  It was a handsome thing, old— which meant “dating from Steve’s time” — and well-maintained.  

Barton, shockingly, teared up.

He blinked fiercely, and swallowed.

“Thanks,” he said.  “I used to...”

When he trailed off, the silence curled up in the kitchen like smoke from green wood.  Steve could hear the dishwasher cycling through, and noticed that the granite counters were still slightly shiny:  they’d been buffed with something before Barton started in on the arrows.

“Did she die on the helicarrier?” Steve asked, keeping his voice low.

It was either that or on the ground in New Mexico; this was too recent for anything else.

Barton laughed, voice bitter.  “On the helicarrier,” he repeated.  “Technically?  Yes.  Sure.  I mean...  I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

Barton nodded.  “Thanks.”

“I’m not that great with guns,” Steve admitted.  “But I’m a dab hand with leather.”

Barton nodded again.  “I’ll go get the uniforms,” he said, and escaped before his grief spilled over again.  

Steve started pulling things out of the bomber’s pockets; he figured he’d have some time before Barton got back.

 

* * *

 

So Barton got it, and Romanov didn’t, and Banner and Thor  _ of course  _ didn’t.

Which left Stark—  _ Tony fucking Stark—  _ who might have gotten it, or might not, but Steve wasn’t going to know either way because Stark went and hid in Malibu for two months while they all hung out in his tower.  

It was... disconcerting.  If  _ Steve  _ had a Tower this nice, he sure wouldn’t leave his friends rattling around in it without him.

 

* * *

 

In the third month, Stark made it back from Malibu, and that was almost worse.  He spent all his time in his workshop, and didn’t talk to any of them; the media showed up outside the tower, and hounded them all for a week, and then got bored and moved on, only a little bit because Bruce (he was Bruce to them, by that point) had started to turn green.  Romanov took one look at Stark, rolled her eyes, instructed him to “Kiss and make up, Stark, you know she’ll always take you back,” and then turned her back and went on a secret SHIELD mission for three weeks.

Barton was the only one of them who managed to actually help Stark, though:  he shrugged, and passed the inventor an explosive arrowhead to look at.

Stark’s face lit up, and he immediately set about taking the little device apart.  “Is it not working right?” he asked, distracted by the puzzle in front of him.  “Or is it that you want it smaller?  The wind resistance has to be a drag— “  He broke off and grinned up at the room.  “—no pun intended.”

“I don’t believe you,” Bruce said dryly.  “I think it was intended.  Nothing that bad could be an accident.”

“It was!  I actually only realized as I said it— thank you, Robin Hood, you do  _ excellent  _ distraction work—”

“Actually,” Clint interrupted, “it’s not broken,  _ and  _ I don’t need it smaller— although, if you can, man, that’d be  _ great.   _ No, I just wanted a bigger boom.  You can do that, right?”

“Can I— do you know who I  _ am?   _ Of  _ course  _ I can do that—!”  

And he was off.

That was why Steve had thought Tony might get it, at first.  Tony was pretty casual sometimes, but when it came to his work— his devices, his bots, JARVIS, the Tower— he was meticulous.  For the Iron Man armor, he would test things himself, but for anyone else’s stuff, he ran the simulations five times and did a dry run before handing anything over.

So really, Steve could be forgiven for thinking Tony might get it.

 

* * *

 

The problem, Steve would eventually come to realize, was that Tony only thought about precision when it came to engineering.  With everything else—  _ everything  _ else— his approach was strictly, let’s say... slapdash.  He got away with it— of course he did— because Tony’s slapdash had more money and style and brilliance than almost anyone else’s meticulous, but that didn’t mean they were the same thing.  They just looked like it, because Tony was so  _ mind-blowingly amazing.   _

Steve wasn’t sure he was still making sense.

Steve  _ was  _ sure that his swiftly-building crush was interfering with his judgement.

Not that it mattered; Stark had a girlfriend.  A really nice one, too.  Steve  _ liked  _ Pepper.

 

* * *

 

It was a month after the Mandarin debacle, and Stark did not have a girlfriend.

_ “Why not?”  _ Steve blurted.  

“Something something, I led a terrorist to her house and she got kidnapped by my ex and was the subject of medical experimentation simply because she was my girlfriend, something...”  Tony— you couldn’t call the guy Stark when he looked that beat up— shrugged.  “It’s fair.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, just as he had to Clint six months ago.  

Tony shrugged.  “Hey,” he asked, pouring about four fingers into a tumbler and giving Steve a pointed look to tell him that the change of subject was deliberate, “have you seen Star Wars yet?”

Steve had not.

 

* * *

 

It grew from there.

They saved the world— mostly without too much collateral damage, even— and watched movies; sometimes the team joined them, and sometimes it was just the two of them.  Sometimes they ate snacks— popcorn and goobers— and sometimes they ate take-out, which Steve had to pick up because no one had the clearance to deliver to the top floors of Avengers Tower.

They became friends.

And then, one evening after watching back-to-back versions of  _ King Kong  _ (the new visual effects were  _ amazing)...  _

...they became more than friends.  

 

* * *

 

Steve couldn’t believe his luck, to be honest.  One minute, he was sitting next to his best friend this millennium— who was already pretty amazing on his own— and talking about a pretty great movie.  The next minute, they were leaning towards each other, laughing, bodies angling closer, closer...

Tony set his drink down.  

Sat up straight.  

Said,  _ “Steve,”  _ in a voice as smokey as the whiskey he’d been drinking.

And Steve leaned in.

It was...

Tony’s mouth was firm for a moment, just a moment, after Steve touched it, and that was right, that made sense, because Tony had quick wits and an animated face and he talked  _ all the time,  _ so of course his mouth would be strong.  And then he opened, and gave, one rough mechanic’s hand coming up to rest on the back of Steve’s neck, the other digging its fingers into the back of the couch, and Steve gasped into Tony’s mouth and Tony groaned and then— 

It was pretty great.

 

* * *

 

But the thing was, Tony still didn’t  _ get  _ it.  He was meticulous with his machines, but other than that, it was like it didn’t even register what he was doing, and Steve couldn’t believe— that is, it didn’t make sense to him— 

Tony should have understood what Steve was doing when he put away his clothes.  Or washed one of the cars.  

Or brought Tony a sandwich.

And Tony... didn’t.

That was all.

But  _ other than that, _ it was still pretty great.

 

* * *

 

“Fucking  _ elves,”  _ Tony grumbled out the viewscreen of the QuinJet, and Steve shot him a sympathetic expression before going back to writing up the report for SHIELD.  

Steve wrote all the reports for SHIELD, in part because no one else on the team actually thought they  _ should  _ write reports for SHIELD— Tony and Bruce hated to acknowledge SHIELD’s authority over the Initiative, Thor was game for in-person debriefs but despised the dry writing of the AAR forms, and Clint and Natasha agreed that the less anyone else knew about their missions, the fewer identifiable weaknesses would be out there— and in part because Steve was the acknowledged leader of the team, which meant he was on duty for all the most onerous parts of their jobs.  

Which, writing the report certainly qualified...

“I’m going to pretend this didn’t happen,” Clint announced to the QuinJet at large.

No one responded.

“Right.  Good talk,” he decided.  “Hey, Tony, think you all can drop me off in the Twin Cities?”

Natasha gave him a very flat look.  “Why.”

Technically, it should probably have been Steve’s decision, but Steve was trying to find a set of euphemisms adequate to make, “We got beat up by elves who wanted to steal the Arc Reactor for an Underhill Palace,” sound not-pathetic, and wasn’t particularly bothered about where Clint wanted to be dropped off.  In fact, he wasn’t paying attention to the discussion at all until he heard his name.  “—  _ Have  _ to show Steve the  _ Mall of America!   _ He’ll love it, it’s like the ultimate American dream!”

“I’ve heard that reasoning before.”  Steve’s voice was dry.  “That thought process was how I got introduced to White Castle burgers.”

Natasha, Tony, and Bruce all glared at the suspected culprit.

Clint held up his hands defensively, eyes wide.  “It wasn’t me!”

“Well, it wasn’t  _ me,” _ Tony said.

“Clint...”  Natasha raised an eyebrow.

“It was Marianne Dufresne,” Steve cut in.

“Who?”

“In 1943.  We were in Wichita for an extra three hours while they cleared the tracks after a storm; the girls took me out.”

The QuinJet was quiet for a second, the odd light of twilight above the clouds combining with the anachronism of White Caste in the 1940’s to render everyone off-balance.

Or, well... as off-balance as  _ some  _ of them got...

“...Seriously, though,” Clint said, brushing Steve’s fast food adventures aside, “The  _ Mall of America!” _

_ “Seriously?”  _ Bruce sighed.

Clint ignored him, focusing in on the most vulnerable point of the team.   _ “Steve,”  _ he insisted as the wind hummed high-pitched over the ‘Jet’s wings.  “You don’t  _ understand.  _  It has  _ roller-coasters.”  _

 

* * *

 

(This was true, actually; it really did have roller-coasters.  And Steve talked Nat into distracting the others long enough for him to buy Tony a Christmas present— a $500 gift card to the  _ As Seen On TV  _ store— so the evening wasn’t a total loss.)

 

* * *

 

Strange cornered them in the Lego store.  

“What,” said Tony.

“What,” said Natasha.

“What?” asked Strange.  “One might almost conclude that you weren’t happy to see me.”

“I’m sorry, doctor.  Why were you here?”  Bruce’s voice was mild, but his use of sarcasm for the honorific  _ doctor _ was so perfectly measured as to be a form of art.

Clint started edging around towards the Lego ballistas.

“I have information,” Strange said.  Somehow, Steve thought, even though they all knew Strange was American, he always seemed like he should be speaking with a British accent.  Maybe it was the smugness...  “Regarding your recent...  _ interactions  _ with the Unseelie Sidhe.”  Strange twitched as a two-inch Lego-made ballista bolt struck him in the cheek.  “It seems their enmity was not solely motivated by avarice for Mr. Starks’ mechanical marvel.”  

Natasha tilted her head to the side.  _  “Mr.  _ Stark?” she repeated.  “Tony, don’t you have a doctorate?”

“Three, actually.  I’m not too hung up on the title, though.  That would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?”

A ballista bolt hit Strange in the forehead.

“Instead, it seems they bear a particular viciousness towards the Captain.”  Strange nodded in his direction, then brought a hand up sharply, just in time to freeze the third Lego bolt mere inches from his eye.  An arc of light shot from the airborne projectile back to the Lego ballista, shattering the toy into all of its component parts.

“Awww, Lego, no!”

Steve sighed.  “Doctor Strange, it might be best if you just told us the news as quickly as possible.”

Strange smiled acidly.  “Your father was a _brùnaidh_ who pissed off the Court; good luck.”

And then he was gone.

Steve stared at the space where Strange had just disappeared.  The ballista bolt, freed from its magical stasis, soared through the air and hit the far wall.

Steve said, “... _ What?” _

 

* * *

 

After that, the Mall of America didn’t hold much appeal, so they all shuffled back to the entrance to catch a cab back to the airport.  

“Wait—” Steve frowned.  “Where’s Clint?”

Natasha buried her head in her hands.  “Don’t ask,” she said.  “He told me we should go on without him; I’m sure it’s a coincidence that we’re so close to the Amtrak station.”  She didn’t raise her head, but her shoulders looked miserable.

“Just so long as you didn’t freeze him in the ice palace,” Bruce said.

Steve turned to him with wide eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous, they don’t even have an ice palace this year.”  Tony looked up from where he was wrapping a new Ragstock’s scarf around his neck.  “I checked.”

Once they were all in the cab— Clint confirmed via text that he had intentionally departed the group— Steve pulled out his phone to find out more about the _brùnaidh._

Luckily, he had Google to help him with the spelling.

 

* * *

 

Tony started pulling off his clothes as soon as they were both in the bedroom, tossing his new scarf over the back of the full-length mirror, dropping his coat and pants on the floor.  Steve walked behind him, picking the clothes up, but then froze once he realized what he was doing.

He’d always been tidy.  Was this  _ why  _ he’d always been tidy?

Steve had a momentary memory of his mother smiling down at him.  He’d been moving the dishes to the kitchen when she had looked at him fondly and said,  _ “You’re always so helpful. You get that from your father.”    _ Was this what she had meant?  Had she known?  If she had, why hadn’t she told him?  Had his father— or rather,  _ Joseph Rogers—  _ even really existed?!

The trousers tumbled from his hands.

Seconds later, though, he bent to practicality.  No use letting the clothes sit on the floor, after all.  

“Steve?”

He looked up from picking up a lone, rolled up sock that had ended up under a chair.  Tony was looking at him, concerned, face carefully blank.

“I’m alright,” Steve said automatically.

“Okay,” Tony agreed.  “You want to tell me what a Brony is?  Not the cartoon one, obviously...  I was a little busy flying the jet and keeping Nat and Bruce off your case, sorry, or I’d have looked it up...”  He took the clothes out of Steve’s hands and tossed them, all of them, into the armchair.  “And then it occurred to me that you might want to be the one to tell me, yourself.”

Steve closed his eyes and opened his arms, and Tony walked into them, carefully folding his arms under the folds of Steve’s greatcoat, around his waist.  “You have to promise not to laugh,” Steve mumbled, resting his chin on Tony’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Tony agreed again.  “It’ll be okay, Steve.  I promise.  We’ll work it out... whatever it is...”

“Nn-nn.”  Steve shook his head back and forth without lifting his chin or opening his eyes.  “Figured it out.  That part... I mean, it’s not  _ my  _ fault my dad was a...”  He trailed off, and shifted his head more securely into the bend of Tony’s neck.

Tony wormed one arm out of Steve’s coat and brought it up around him, running his fingers into Steve’s hair.  “I’m not laughing,” he said.  “It’s okay, Steve.  I’m not laughing.”

Instead of answering, Steve let himself have this.  Let himself stay, wrapped in his lover’s arms, safe and secure and settled, for just one more moment.  Tony’s hand was moving, because Tony was almost always moving, but it wasn’t a bad kind of movement; he was carding through the fuzzy short hair on the back of Steve’s head, brushing it up so that it fluffed like the fur on a cat’s stomach.  Scritch, scritch, scritch, gentle movements of dextrous fingers, and Steve  _ let himself have it  _ for one more minute, leaning into that touch.

Finally, Steve opened his eyes and stepped back.  “Okay,” he said.  “Okay.  They’re a kind of...”  He winced.  “A kind of fairy?”  

Tony nodded, and didn’t laugh.

Steve breathed out, and kept going.

“There are a lot of different descriptions from different cultures.  A lot of them claim they have fur all over their body, which— ”  Steve gestured down at himself.

“Not so much,” Tony agreed.  He graciously did not take the opportunity to make fun of Steve’s lack of body hair, which he had absolutely commented on in the past.

“Others say that they’re invisible.  But there’s a legend from Scotland that say they’re visible only to those with magic, blond, and ‘jolly and personable’.  I thought maybe... shapeshifter?”

“Shapeshifter sounds reasonable; I was thinking glamour.”  Tony pulled Steve back into his arms.  “What else are they like?”

“You’ll love this,” Steve muttered.  “They like gifts, but not payment...”

“Oh.”  Tony’s shoulder shook briefly, but he still didn’t laugh— even though, for the first few months of their acquaintance, Steve had been adamant about not accepting any form of money from Tony.

“...And they especially like food.”

Steve’s appetite, specifically the sheer  _ volume  _ of food he could put away, was a running joke amongst the whole team.

Tony pulled back again to look suspiciously up at him.  “Are you making this up?”

Steve shook his head, avoiding Tony’s eyes.  “You ever hear of leaving out a saucer of milk for the fairies?  Well...”

“Wait, I thought that was just for the...”  Tony’s eyes widened as he realized what the end of that sentence was, and he pulled Steve sharply close to him again as tremors shook him.   He didn’t say a thing out loud, though, and the only sounds Steve heard were small, stifled, guttural noises that didn’t make it past Tony’s throat.

Steve sighed.  “It’s okay,” he said resignedly.

“No, it’s not!” Tony immediately insisted, voice strangled.  “It’s not okay!   _ I promised I wouldn’t laugh!” _

Steve sighed again, and patted Tony on the back.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, Tony stepped back.

“Okay, it’s okay, I’m okay.”  He kept on hand on Steve’s shoulder and looked carefully into Steve’s eyes.  “So you’re... part house-elf...”  

Steve winced.

“No?  Part— “

“Just say part fairy,” Steve interrupted.  “It’s easier.”

Tony’s mouth twitched, but he just said, “Okay then.  Question is, now what do we do?  Is this going to change anything?”

Steve sighed, and tossed the clothes from the chair to the laundry chute.  “Not that I can see.  I’ll have a good excuse for strangling the next person who leaves an oatmeal bowl in the shooting range, but other than that...”

“No, don’t even bother with that one, I think Clint’s been strangled so much it’s stopped being effective.”

Steve breathed in sharply and lowered himself into the chair, leaning his head back against the headrest.  Tony smiled sympathetically, then came over, slinging first his left, then his right, leg over Steve’s lap, so that he was straddling him.  Steve slipped his hands inside Tony’s unbuttoned shirt to hold him by the waist.  “You tryin’ to distract me?” 

Tony was wearing half a shirt and a pair of red silk boxers, so Steve had to admit, the whole “distracting” plan was working out pretty well.

“Hmm...”  Tony leaned in and sniffed at Steve’s neck, and Steve gasped and let his head fall to the side.  “We’ve had a long day.  Attacked by elves.  Talked at by Mr. Strange.”

Steve snorted.

“Let me make it go away for a while,” Tony said.  He put his palm flat against Steve’s chest.  “Let me just... make you let go... for tonight.”  

There’s still a lot to be done, Steve thought.  Report to write, new heritage to investigate...

Tony slipped his hand sideways and thumbed a nipple, and Steve arched into his grasp.

“Let me take care of you,” Tony insisted, breath hot in Steve’s ear, and that was when Steve realized, with a feeling like tripping over a coffee table in the dark:  

_ Tony got it.   _ He did get it, after all.

Not about things, okay— Tony didn’t care whether or not his shirt got wrinkled, because Tony could get more shirts, and to him they weren’t important.  But about  _ him—  _ about  _ Steve,  _ and also, now that Steve thought of it, about Pepper, and Rhodey, and the team— Tony  _ got it.   _ He took care of their stuff, and their hearts, as best he could, and if he wasn’t good at it, sometimes, it wasn’t because he didn’t  _ try.   _

And people didn’t even see what Tony was doing.   _ Steve  _ hadn’t even seen what Tony was doing.

Because half the messes Tony was cleaning up, he was cleaning so that they would never have to see them.

Steve closed his eyes, and gasped, and gasped, as Tony worked his mouth southward.  “Okay,” Steve agreed.  “For tonight.  Okay.”

They could deal with the rest of it in the morning.  There were more important things to worry about for now, anyway.


	3. To Help People at All Times

Time passed, and Steve became more and more comfortable with the knowledge of his inhuman heritage.  He even became more comfortable with the portions of that heritage which found expression within his own desires.

 

* * *

 

“Justin _fucking_ Hammer,” Tony snarled, slamming open the door into the bedroom.

He and Steve were supposed to be coming in from an honorary dinner for distinguished engineers, but in all honesty, it _felt_ like they were coming in from a demolition derby — one where _Justin fucking Hammer_ was playing the part of the monster truck.

They were both exhausted and sore, but Tony was exhausted, sore, and _pissed._

(Not that he was going to let that show, of course.  Steve deserved better.)

But Tony was pretty sure he was entitled to feel furious:  out of all the people who could have busted into the dinner, it _had_ to be _Justin fucking Hammer._ And of all of the formal dinners of Tony’s he could have busted into, it _had_ to be the one night a year that had never, _ever_ had anything to do with weapons — not even when _Howard_ was hosting it.  (And why did everything Tony built that was good have to get destroyed?)

Tony gritted his teeth, and breathed.  Steve always lingered behind, hanging up their coats in the hall closet, when they entered the apartment together, so Tony took the moment to get over it, letting his shoulders slumped and deliberately unclenching the muscles of his head and neck as he crossed the room.  The wall next to the door, across from the bed, was mirrored, and Tony folded down onto the side of the mattress, legs stretched out straight so that they made a hypotenuse with the floor.  He folded his hands in his lap, and just... watched himself, for a moment.

He looked... tired.  Frustrated.  Well, that was true:  Justin _fucking_ Hammer needed to be damned to a cold castle in Lithuania, where he could be hung from a chain in a very small cage until he suffocated.  Or something.  Some suitable punishment for the slapstick clusterfuck which had been inflicted on Tony (and Steve, and roughly two hundred inventors and engineers) at the dinner tonight.

Now that Tony was unclenching, he became aware of the pain throbbing in his face and temples:  His face, because he’d gotten hit with a piece of Hammer’s bomb when it exploded in precisely the way it _hadn’t_ been intended to; and his temples, because being confronted with incompetence made him tense.  “I’m pretty sure this is why I stopped being a CEO,” he mused aloud.  “Wasn’t that the reason?”

“I couldn’t possibly say, sir.”

Tony jerked his head at JARVIS’s answer, then immediately regretted it when his generalized throbbing intensified.  “Yeah, I wasn’t actually asking you.”

Anyway, Hammer had definitely had something to do with his retirement.  Not even JARVIS could tell him otherwise.  

So there.

A small sound, deliberate and polite, pulled Tony’s attention out of himself.  “I’m sorry your party got interrupted,” Steve said from the doorway.  

Tony skated his eyes over to him, standing, whether or not he realized it, directly beside Tony’s reflection in the mirror.

He pasted on a smile.  “Not your fault,” he assured Steve.  “Not any of our fault.  Justin _fucking Hammer’s_ fault.”  

_That prick._

“Not how I meant it, actually.”  Steve seemed jittery— he frequently did, these days.  Tony wasn’t sure— there were a lot of things that could be causing it.  “Mind if I take your shoes?”

Tony blinked, but shrugged, silently shifting his right foot up towards his lap.  Luckily, they came off easily once they were untied; Tony was tired enough he didn’t want to deal with complicated laces.

“Not like that,” Steve stopped him.  

He looked briefly surprised at the sound of his own voice, as if he hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but then gamely went on, “I’ve got ‘em, it’s fine.  Just— stay there.”  He knelt, pulling one of Tony’s feet into his arms.

Tony winced; his shoes had been walking along the sidewalks outside, which were covered in aqueous salt and the five thousand varieties of sludge which emerged when New York City encountered snow.  It _had_ to be cold and unpleasant against the illegally-thin fabric of Steve’s shirt.  “You really don’t have to— “

“Well, I want to.”  

Steve didn’t make eye contact as he unlaced the wingtip.  

Tony looked at him helplessly.  If it had been less of a day— if the dinner had gone flawlessly, _or_ if Hammer had attacked during their time off, either one— or, heck, if Tony had actually gotten to _pound the shit out of Hammer_ before the fucking idiot _knocked himself out with his own defective IED—_

But it _was_ a hell of a day, and Tony was hurting, and he did not have the patience to deal with Steve’s _bullshit_ right now!

“I don’t want you getting wet and grubby,” he said irritably, and yanked back on his foot.

Steve let it, tumbling slightly backwards, but it was the look on his face that stopped Tony.  

Tony put his foot back on the ground, and sighed.  “Steve.”

Steve didn’t meet his eyes.

_“Steve.”_

“It’s fine,” Steve muttered, and started to get up.

“God, Steve, _sit down,”_ Tony ordered.  

Steve sat.

“Now, will you tell me what’s going on?”

The room was quiet enough that Tony thought he could hear the snowflakes landing on the windowpanes; apparently, then, Steve wasn’t going to talk.

Which meant Tony had to _guess._

Which Tony was only _barely_ up to on a _good_ day, _which this wasn’t._

So he did the only thing he could see as _possibly_ being a good move, and inched his foot a little closer to where Steve sat, tailor-style, on the carpet.  “Hey, Steve.  Would you please help me take off my shoes?” Tony asked, trying to keep his voice gentle with only middling success.  

Steve looked up and smiled, though, the shy, surprised smile he got when Tony somehow managed to figure him out a little bit, so Tony took it as a win.  Slowly, Steve eased the shoes off of Tony’s feet, and it did actually feel pretty good having someone take care of that for him.  After he’d set the shoes aside (just inside the door, on a towel he’d laid down for his own shoes), Steve turned back, and sat down on the ground, easing Tony’s socks off for him while massaging his feet.

It felt _incredible._ Steve had those _hands—_ the ones that had been incredibly talented even before the serum, because Steve had _artist’s hands—_ and now they were also _strong,_ and _huge,_ and they _never got tired_.

Tony moaned.  Steve’s face lit up.  “Feels good, Tony?”

“Oh my god, _yes.”_ With effort, Tony wrenched himself upright— he’d started to slump when the relaxation started — and leaned forward, cuffing Steve by the collar and dragging him into a kiss.  “God, you’re so good to me,” he breathed against Steve’s mouth, and he hadn’t even been _trying,_ but that was almost — that was _almost_ it: whatever “deep dark secret” Steve had been hiding, quote marks _entirely_ called for, Tony had almost just stumbled on one of the keys that would unlock it.  He could see it in the way Steve’s breath caught, and the way he bit his lip.

Unfortunately, Tony could _see_ him deciding not to say anything, and that was just—

No.

 _No,_ they were not doing that.  Absolutely _not,_ Tony decided.   _Fuck that shit._ “Steve, _ask me,”_ he ordered.

He saw the moment when it had an effect.  Steve’s chin came up, and his gaze firmed; he turned _brick_ red, but he spoke anyway, saying, “I would like to take care of you tonight.”

And the he swallowed, looking pale behind his bravado.

Tony blinked, confused.  

“Take care of me like...  hot compresses?”

Steve tilted his head, which meant _no,_ but he said, “If you like.  Or a massage.  And bandaging up that cut on your head.  Or— or whatever else you want me to do for you.”  The blush was spreading down to his chest, now, but he continued to meet Tony’s eyes as he added, “Anything you tell me to do, basically.”

Which was a... _fascinating_ turn of phrase.

Tony’s mind exploded with possibilities, each one more pornographic than the last.  Steve on his knees, oh, that was a good one, sure; could he get him to wear an outfit?  His mind threw up an image of Steve in an outfit mostly composed of black leather straps, but Tony rejected it almost immediately as being too harsh.  On the other hand, did he still have any lingerie in the closet...?  Steve would look _astonishing_ in powder-blue lace...  

He could tell Steve to go to his knees, and rim him and rim him until he cried...  He could tell Steve to hold still and eat sushi off of his stomach...  He could leave love bites on Steve’s shoulders and arms and chest, over and over again, until he had to start right back at the top because by the time he’d be done, the first ones would be healing...

“Oh,” Tony said faintly.  

 _Or,_ his tired mind mentioned, _you could just order him to let you sleep._

Fuck, he was getting old.

“Okay,” he said instead, unsteadily.  “That’s a _great..._ blank check... you’ve written there...”  He leaned forward again to recapture Steve’s gaze.  “Was there anything in _particular_ you would like us to do?  Would like me to... order you... to do?”  That _was_ what Steve had said, right?  He had specifically requested Tony to order him around — Tony was sure he hadn’t imagined it...

But no, it was okay:  Steve bit his lip and bent his head, smile tucking into the corners of his mouth.  “Well,” he allowed, “I _would_ like to get our clothes off...”

Tony laughed, and the possibilities rolled out in front of him again.  Okay, no lingerie this time; Tony could work with that.  “Yeah, okay,” he said aloud, fingers going to the thousands of impossibly-small buttons on his white shirt.  The backs of his palms brushed the undone ends of his tie as he opened the first one at his throat.  “Here, come help me with this.”

Steve’s smile was blinding, like staring straight into the sun, and Tony blinked away tears and after-images as Steve rose to one knee and gently, firmly, placed his hands where Tony’s hands had been, knocking them away.

Normally, Tony reflected, he would have brushed Steve off and done it himself.  But, well...  This seemed important to Steve.

Tony wasn’t quite sure what was going on here; he doubted it was _entirely_ what it seemed, not least because Tony wasn't that lucky.  But if Steve was this worked up about even _asking_ for this whatever-it-was, then it had to be pretty significant to him, so rather than yanking his shirt off himself, Tony let his hands fall to the side and watched as Steve’s dextrous fingers opened one after another mother-of-pearl buttons until Tony was entirely unwrapped.

When the shirt was completely opened in front, but still hanging loosely around Tony’s shoulders, Steve reached up, popping up the collar.  Delicately, he fished out the black bowtie Tony had worn, lying it smoothly over his shoulder and then stroking it to ensure it lay flat.

He reached out for Tony’s wrist, and it took a moment for Tony to realize what he was going for.  Obediently, he watched as Steve unfasted first the watch, then the cufflink, at his left wrist.  

Steve stood, then, stepping back, putting the watch back in the case, the cufflink in the shallow drawer, and the tie, after inspection, rolled into a spiral on top of the dresser.  Once again, he knelt in front of Tony, and without either of them saying anything, Tony held out his right wrist this time.  No second watch, tonight— he’d have been less worried about Hammer if he’d had on the Iron Glove — but the cufflink slid out smoothly, and then Steve was easing the white shirt off of his shoulders, motions level and steady.

Tony could hear the deep, harsh sounding of their breathing, though; he knew neither one of them was really steady.

“Not that I mind,” he said, mentally wincing at the slight shake in his voice, “but what brought this on?  It’s fine— more than fine— I’m just wondering what— where it came from.”  He stood, weight balanced on his bare feet, and watched as Steve skimmed his hands along his ribs before unhooking the clasps of his trousers and easing the zipper down.  The zipper was one of those fine, tiny ones they apparently only use on dress trousers and women’s clothing, and it looked impossibly small in Steve’s blunt fingers.

He breathed out shakily as Steve eased the trousers down his thighs.  Steve looked up at him— he was on his knees— and for a moment was just so heartbreakingly beautiful, the light of the bedside lamp slanting golden over his face, that Tony completely forgot everything about how shitty his evening had been, and how tired he was, and the not-quite-broken nose from Hammer’s bomb.  

Steve licked his lips— Tony tracked the movement of his tongue, breathing in sharply— and said, “I want you to have nice things.”  He tugged at the pants, and Tony stepped out of them, doing a little two-step, side-to-side dance as Steve lifted them away.

“I have nice things,” he said, watching as Steve sent the pants after the dress shirt.  “I’m a billionaire, I can have all the nicest things.”

Steve gave him a chiding look.  “I want you to have nice things _because they’re well-maintained,”_ he clarified.  “I want you to feel good, and cared for, and... _cherished,_ alright?  It makes me—”  His breath caught.  “—It makes me happy to see you— to _know_ you’re...”  He struggled for the word, mouth working silently, hand circling in a grasping gesture in front of him.

“Safe?” Tony suggested.  “Coddled?  Patched up?”

Steve rolled his eyes.  “Taken care of,” he said firmly.

For no reason whatsoever, Tony suddenly had trouble breathing.  He gave a little cough to clear his throat, then said, “Okay.”

Steve smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners.  “Okay?” he said hopefully.

“Okay,” Tony agreed firmly.  “Get over here.”

“Well, sure; you still have your boxers on.”  Steve’s speed of movement belied the easygoing tone of his voice, though: he was relieved, and keyed up, and probably half a dozen other emotions that Tony was not able to identify right at that moment.  

He knelt again to get the boxers off, sliding them down Tony’s legs with the same sensual tenderness that he’d given to the rest of Tony’s clothes, but once they were puddled around his ankles, Tony reached out, running his fingers through the soft, downy blond hair, then gripping Steve firmly enough that he could be sure it didn’t hurt.

“Stop,” Tony ordered.  

He kept his voice soft, gentle, even, and waited until Steve responded, which he did by swallowing and saying, “Okay, Tony.”

Tony closed his eyes for a moment.

It was an old phrase, one they’d used before.  Tony had never expected to hear it in this context— in fact, he hadn’t seen _any_ of this coming — but if he played it back, used the phrase in this context as a cipher to reinterpret all his previous experiences...

Steve had said it for the first time over shwarma.  He had been jittery, eager to get back out and start helping with the cleanup; he and the others had argued about it, he and Thor feeling that it was their obligation to aid with the damages, Tony and Natasha urging them to be sensible and take some time to rest, to get out and be fresh.   _“You have injuries that need to be tended, you’re exhausted, come on— you’ve got to take care of yourself, Cap.”_

And Steve had smiled and ducked his head, then looked up and met Tony’s eyes.   _“Okay, Stark,”_ he had agreed, and oh, but that was now _completely different_ in retrospect.

The next time Steve had said it— or rather, the next time Tony remembered him saying it— Tony had been up on a thirty-six hour science bender, upgrading the Tower’s security system right before he headed back out to Malibu.  Steve had brought him a sandwich and a smoothie — not a great smoothie, but hell, better than DUM-E’s attempts — and was trying to persuade him that he should be sleeping instead, and Tony had promised him that he would go to sleep as soon as he’d finished this project, which was technically true, and that he was almost done, which wasn’t at all true, and then Steve had smiled and — oh, god _—_ said, _“okay, Tony,”_ and somehow— Tony wasn’t quite sure how — he had found himself wrapping up the project inside of an hour, instead of the ten he had thought it would take.

Tony told Steve to watch Star Trek.   _“Okay, Tony.”_

Tony told Steve to come to an awards dinner with him. _“Okay, Tony.”_

Tony told Steve — oh, _god—_ to come upstairs with him, which he’d only said because they had been making out in the common room and he had thought maybe Steve was less of an exhibitionist than Tony was— and Steve had bitten his lip hard enough to drive Tony crazy.

_“Okay, Tony.”_

_Oh, shit, oh_ fuck, _he really has been saying it all along,_ Tony realized, and without even being aware of it, his fingers tightened in Steve’s hair.  

Steve whined.

It wasn’t a bad whine.  It was pretty much the opposite, in fact: it was a very, very _good_ whine, the sort of sound you make when you’re too fucking turned on to use words.

Tony realized he was panting, and tugged on Steve’s hair enough to move his head around a bit, enough to make it clear what he wanted him to do.  

Steve’s mouth wrapping around him was not unfamiliar— they both enjoyed oral sex _quite_ a bit, thank you, and while Tony would never formally wager his own lack of gag reflex against Steve’s unnaturally-enhanced breath-holding abilities, they had had a lot of fun exploring the boundaries of both of those virtues.  In this case, Steve didn’t even have to hold his breath, because Tony was still soft when Steve sucked him in, swallowing around him, easing down until his nose brushed the ruthlessly-trimmed hairs around the base.  Steve drooled and swallowed, though, and the situation was... the situation was going to make Tony rapidly lose control if he didn’t focus in a little.  

It didn’t take long for Tony to harden in Steve’s mouth, pushing in and down as Steve swallowed and worked him with his tongue.  “So good,” Tony murmured, and loosened his grip to brush through the hair at the base of Steve’s neck.  Steve whined again, and ground his nose into Tony’s pelvis even further, which Tony took as a sign that Steve deeply appreciated being told he was good.  That was... not really a surprise, actually, come to think of it.

(Okay, in retrospect, there were a _lot_ of things that should have tipped Tony off that this was on the horizon, but in his own defense— Steve was _Captain America!_ Why the _hell_ would _anyone_ think Steve would be interested in subbing?!

Tony wasn’t exactly _objecting,_ though, was he?  This was pretty much entirely in “dream come true” territory.)

“Good, Steve,” he murmured, conscious of it this time.  He was doing it deliberately, now, trying to make sure that Steve got what he needed.  “God, _so_ good, you just— god, you’re so —”  

He kept going, petting and praising, caressing Steve’s neck and ears, occasionally grasping the hair more firmly and pulling him in, until Steve’s shoulders jerked in a way that suggested he really did need to pull back for a bit.  Tony took it a step further, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder and shoving, so that Steve rocked back from him.  With the change in angle, Tony could see that his eyes were wide, pupils dilated, irises a thin ring of dark, dark blue.  

God.

That was his sex-crazy face.  

Steve really _was_ into this, wasn't he?

“Jesus,” Tony breathed.  “Yeah.  Good, okay.”  He licked his lips and swallowed, really _thinking_ about what he wanted tonight.  Trying to guess what _Steve_ wanted, which was easier said than done by a long fucking shot.  

He watched Steve’s teeth sink into his bottom lip, only to be followed by a tongue that darted out and swiped at the same place.  His mouth was extra pink anyway, from the pressure of being wrapped around Tony’s cock, from the slight friction of the spiky hairs, and Jesus, all Tony wanted was to shove right back in again, but...

Steve had wanted to “take care of him” tonight. Tony really doubted this was the only thing he’d meant.

He swallowed again.  “Take off your clothes,” he ordered, still keeping his voice soft, “and get on the bed.”

Steve made another of those high-pitched sex-noises, and complied, his limbs so clumsy from arousal that he almost staggered as he clambered in.

“Turn,” Tony ordered, then clarified, “So that your back is to me.  On your knees, sitting up.”  He hadn’t gotten into the bed himself, and was still standing beside it.  Steve was basically just putting himself at a more convenient height.  

Tony leaned forwards and wrapped his arms around Steve from the back, one long hug, and Steve made a bitten-off sound before saying, _“Tony,”_ in a voice almost as wrecked as Tony felt.  

Tony nipped at the convenient shoulder, that diagonal line of muscle that ran from the neck to the clavicle, and then kissed the spot he’d bitten when Steve cried out.  “I love you, Steve,” he murmured.  

Steve gasped, and hung in his grip, and didn’t respond.

Tony looked up.

Steve’s head was cocked back, looking over his shoulder enough to meet Tony’s eyes, and his gaze was full of... god, full of _everything:_ affection, and tenderness, and amusement, and challenge, and joy, and— and—

— full of love.

It was all right there.

Steve’s smile, already curving into his cheek like a kiss, grew broader, and Tony felt his heart clench at the partnership— the passion, and challenge, and support— in that look.

Steve said, “Okay, Tony.”

Tony hugged him, clinging to him like a drowning sailor to a rope, and tried not to shake apart.

 

* * *

 

After that, Tony got his breath back.  He _had_ had an idea of oiling Steve up and just going to town on him, and then calling it a night— some half-baked plan of starting this new adventure of theirs off slow— but after that, after _that look in Steve’s eyes,_ he kind of... remembered who either of them was, frankly; they were not men well-suited to taking things slowly.  So he changed it up a bit.  

Soon, he was lying sprawled horizontally across the bed, Steve crouched over him and kneading at the muscles of his back— which probably, Tony reflected, was not the _original_ goal of the super-soldier program, but if the man wanted to retire to be a super-masseuse instead, Tony was pretty sure he could make a decent living.  Steve had looked confused and tilted his head when Tony positioned them the short way across the bed, but Tony had had a plan, and it was paying off now, because he was facing the floor-length mirror lining the closet door, and he could see the beatific expression in Steve’s face, and honestly?  That pretty much made it all worth it.

Well.  And the massage.  The massage was _also_ making it all worth it.  “Jesus pogofucking Christ, you have _such talented hands.”_

Tony almost couldn’t get up by the time Steve’s movements started to slow— not, he thought, because Steve was tired, since of course he couldn’t be; he might be getting a bit bored, though, and it was probably time to start mixing it up— so he rocked himself from side to side until he had started enough energy flowing into his bonelessly relaxed arms and legs that he was able to sit up.  

He almost missed it, so blissed out from the working-over Steve had given him.  It wasn’t a large movement on Steve’s part, just a flicker of the eyes from Tony’s, once up and to the left, and then again slightly down and to the right.

What was he looking at?

It took a moment to realize, and then Tony smiled, faintly.  “Bothering you, is it?” he asked sympathetically.  “Alright, it’s not exactly comfortable for me, either.”

He waited, and Steve took his cue, actually cracking a grin this time.  “Okay, Tony.”

Tony’s dick throbbed, and it was going to throb every time he heard those words from now on, and honestly Tony was really okay with that.  

“There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom,” he told Steve.  “Go get it.”

Steve came back with more than the first aid kit; he also had a hot towel, a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, and a glass of water.  “God, look at you,” Tony praised.  “So prepared.  Alright, do me.”

Steve’s smile lit up his whole _face,_ this time.  “Okay, Tony.”  

Tony gasped, but that was okay; if anyone asked, he was going to blame it on the head wound.  

Steve’s hands were infinitely gentle as he washed away the contusion from the fight with the warm towel.  He murmured a warning before he used the alcohol wipes, and applied the butterfly bandage so delicately that Tony barely even felt the pinch.  He laid a pad of gauze, along with plenty of neosporin, along the whole thing, and brushed a feather-light kiss over it when he was done.  

Tony sighed.

Steve fed him the Tylenol as Tony rubbed a hand along his back, and pressed kisses to Tony’s chest while Tony held onto his biceps, Tony’s hands gripping not tightly enough to bruise— not even if Steve had been a normal human— but nevertheless, still enough to make Steve groan and shake in his arms.  

Then Steve broke out the cold pack, shaking it until it started to frost over on the outside, and laid it, inside a dry washcloth, against the worst of Tony’s bruises.  Tony gasped, one hand instinctively rising to hold it in place.  “So _good_ to me, Steve,” he said, voice catching.  “You’re being so good.  God.  Is there anything you want?  Anything at all?”

Steve blushed, brilliantly, and made an inarticulate yearning noise.  Which was a pretty fair indication that there _was_ something he wanted, but Tony had no idea what it might be.  

“Yeah?  What can I do for you, baby?  What are we missing, right now?”  Steve’s face registered an objection — probably to the idea that Tony was missing anything, but that was alright, Tony knew what that looked like when he saw it, and he was seeing it— and Tony let himself think over the evening as his hands wandered, slipping down over Steve’s beautiful skin, scratching across one nipple—

— Steve gasped.

Tony looked up, one-eyed from the cold pack, but visual confirmation was just that: he’d known from the instant Steve made the sound.  

 _This is_ new, Tony reminded himself.   _Be careful!_

Steve was too important to be careless with.

“Steve,” Tony said, leaning closer.  “Baby.”

Steve bit his lip again, and Tony reached up with his free hand to gently pull the lip forward.  Steve’s eyes widened, and his breathing increased, faster and faster the longer Tony pulled Steve’s mouth out of shape with his thumb.  Tony smiled, letting the tips of his own teeth show, and released him.  “Steve,” he purred.  “Was there something you wanted?”

He let his hand drift down to Steve’s throat, wrapping around it.

Steve _keened._

Oh, god, it was _delicious,_ and for half a second, Tony was _flying:_ off on a wild fantasy of fucking into Steve’s throat, of wrapping his hand around it, of squeezing all the air out of him, of doing things which were _crazy,_ but the _good_ crazy, things that would make both of them come so hard they saw each other’s _stars..._

...But this was _new._ Tony had to be _careful._

_Damnit!_

Tony took a breath, and, using the light grip he had on Steve’s throat, tossed him away.  Not far, just enough that Steve ended on his back on the bed.  “Too bad,” Tony told him, wagering that this, too, was something Steve at least a little bit wanted: to be told no, to be stopped, to be ordered to do something unexpected.  “You offered,” Tony reminded him, and watched his face work in wonderful, agonized ways.  “You _begged,_ even.  Anything I order you to do, right, Steve?”

Steve panted, and nodded, face destroyed by the arousal Tony could now plainly see mirrored on his body.

“Alright,” Tony said quietly.  “Alright.  Up here, then.  On your back, head on the pillows.  That’s it,” he praised as Steve moved, still clumsy and drugged with the desire.  But Tony had had some first aid, a massage, and half a blow job; he was well into his second wind.  “Good job, Steve.  Just like that.”

Steve laughed, low and wrecked.  “Okay, Tony,” he croaked, and Tony couldn’t help leaning down to kiss him, sucking on his damned pink lips, slipping his tongue inside over and over, again and again, while Steve panted and groaned beneath him.

It was good.  God, it was so very good. Tony pulled back, looking fondly at Steve and the absolutely gorgeous picture he made, all spread out, naked, on Tony’s crimson sheets, skin a warm golden tone in the half-light of the bedside lamp.  “I love you,” he said helplessly.  It was like the words pulled out of him without any volition, but god help him, it was true, anyway.

Steve smiled back, brilliantly, and god, the truth was all over his face.  “Okay, Tony,” he agreed, blushing fetchingly, and Tony couldn’t help himself; he leaned over and devoured Steve’s mouth once again.  

Long, drugging minutes passed by before Tony could bear to move on.  Honestly, he might not have stopped kissing Steve, even then, if it weren’t for the crick in his neck.  

“Alright,” he ordered, settling his weight backwards.  He was kneeling next to Steve’s head, and straightening up sent a spasm through his lower back that made him flex it forward.  Steve, mere inches from his dick as it swung forward with the movement, bobbing slightly, fully erect, moaned loudly and licked his lips.

“No,” Tony said firmly, but he could feel the smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.  

Steve could see the crinkles, too: he smiled mischievously and shrugged.

Tony rolled his eyes.  “Not quite,” he told Steve.  “Are you sure you’re up for anything?”

Steve started to nod, but then hesitate, a flash of worry passing over his expression.  “I think I’m game for anything you want,” he hedged, “But if I’m not, I’ll tell you.”

“Fair.”  Tony brushed his hand along Steve’s jaw, caressing the smooth skin there, brushing his thumb over Steve’s mouth.  He watched closely as he asked, “So how would you feel about eating me out?”

Steve’s eyes widened with shock, but also with something else, and Tony didn’t hesitate; he knew that look, he _knew what that meant,_ and he was already swinging his leg over Steve’s neck, leaning forward, bracing himself against the uneven surface of the headboard as Steve cautiously, carefully, lifted his hands to Tony’s ass.

Strong fingers worked the cheeks, strong thumbs working into the muscular curve of them, and Tony gasped at the deep ache of the sensation.  He felt Steve’s breath before he felt anything else, warm, slightly-moist puffs against the sensitive skin below his balls, and then, after one endless moment spent clinging to the headboard, the wet brush of his mouth.  His _tongue,_ God!  Tony cried out, and Steve made a sound in response, some pleased-sounding thing that Tony more felt than heard because, after all, _Steve’s mouth was full._

_Of his ass._

It was _amazing._

Tony groaned and edged his grip a little firmer against the wood of the bed, panting at the feel of a strong, dextrous tongue smoothing over his entrance, _lap lap lap_ with broad strokes, and the probing, stabbing into him, strong jabs that opened him slowly further and further, until he felt puffy, swollen, but also totally relaxed.  

It went on and on, just the two of them, tied together with a strange duality, gentle but invasive, all at the same time.  It was good, it was _so_ good, perfect, so open, so close, god, and all he wanted to do was rear back and kiss Steve until his mouth ran bloody, but at the same time, he wanted to never move, just to stay here as Steve licked and licked into him, making little kitten-noises as they both grew more and more desperate.

Tony let it go as long as he possibly could.

He really did.

It wasn’t his fault he had to call an end to it, really; it was Steve’s, Steve’s fault for making those delicious fucking whimpers, Steve’s fault for making him so mad he was shouting, gripping the headboard with knuckles turned white.  Steve’s fault he had to pull back and kiss the subtle hint of a taste out of Steve’s mouth, while Steve just took his tongue, while Steve shouted and jerked, curling his perfect body up and around Tony’s.

Steve’s fault he had to shove off, bending backwards to reach into the bedside table, grabbing out the lube.  Steve’s fault he damn near spilled the whole fucking bottle all over both of them getting it open.  Steve’s fault as Tony straddled his hips, sliding their lengths together.  Steve’s fault when Tony grabbed both of his wrists, bringing his hands up and around their cocks until Steve got the idea and started stroking, while Tony braced his hands on Steve’s powerful shoulders hold himself up and in position.

Steve’s fault they both exploded within seconds of each other, and that between the lube and the two of them, there was barely a dry spot in the entire bed.

Steve’s fault.

Entirely.

Really.

 

* * *

 

He had lost the ice pack, somewhere along the way.  

He didn’t really mind.

 

* * *

 

Once they could both move again, Steve rolled himself out of bed.  He actually _literally_ rolled himself out of bed, falling to the ground with a thump and then just lying there for a minute.  Eventually, he raised himself up to hands and knees, and he was even walking by the time he made it to the bathroom.  

Tony lay there bonelessly, listening to Steve swish what he assumed had to be mouthwash back and forth before spitting, brushing his teeth, flossing, and then swishing again.  Water ran, cabinets opened and closed, and water ran again, and then Steve was walking back to the bed with a tray.  

Tony looked at the tray’s contents and laughed.  “Cleaning me up _again?”_ he asked fondly.  “Okay, Steve.”

Steve looked up sharply, but Tony was pretty sure the fondness came through when their eyes met.

 

* * *

 

That night, they both slept deeply, and Tony didn’t dream about explosions _or_ injured civilian scientists, or even Justin Hammer, at all.


End file.
